英语专业毕业论文-School of Polytechnic.doc

school of polytechnic, hebei university of science and technology1. introduction1.1. importance of vocabulary in second language learningvocabulary learning is an important aspect of second language learning. vocabulary learning, however, got little attention during the 1950s and 1960s and was a neglected part of second language learning. during the 1970s, research into vocabulary learning began to grow in applied linguistics and increasingly has become a focus of much research at present. the role of vocabulary memorizing has changed completely, as maiguashca(1993) stated that the study of vocabulary has changed from being the “poor relation” of second language education in the past into the role of “guest of honor” at present.the researchers have attached great importance to vocabulary with the enhancement of the status of vocabulary learning. wilkins (1972) (cited from lessard-clouston 1996), for example, pointed out “while without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”. krashen and terrell (1983) also clearly indicated “vocabulary is of prime concern in l2 settings because it plays a dominant role in classroom success”.in a word, it is obvious now that the good grasp of a large number of words is an essential component of second language acquisition and learners, therefore, must master large vocabularies in order to get a good proficiency in second language learning.1.2. necessity of vocabulary memorizing strategies with the tendency of globalization and chinas entry into the wto, the significant role of english has become more evident. at the same time, english vocabulary memorizing plays a very important role in “how to learn english” well. for most chinese learners, english vocabulary has always been their top concern as well as their big headache on which they spend a lot of time. in order to help them study english vocabulary more effectively and efficiently, it is necessary to explore learning strategies they actually use in their english vocabulary learning process.oxford （1990）, one of the leading researchers in the language learning strategies field, indicated that: (1) strategies are tools for active, self-directed involvement, which is essential for developing communicative competence; (2) learners who have developed appropriate learning strategies have greater self-confidence and learn more effectively. therefore, the knowledge of learning strategies is important because it will facilitate language learning considerably.1.3. main idea of the dissertation this dissertation tends to find a series of strategies accessible to memorizing words that are the most appropriate ways of learning vocabulary. in doing so, the author hopes to gain some insight into the word memorization and to improve learners vocabulary in the process of english language learning. to finish what the above-mentioned issues, the dissertation is presented with five parts. part 1 is a brief introduction to the importance and necessity of vocabulary learning in second language learning. part 2 is literature review, which mainly involves definitions and terms closely related with memorizing strategies, such as definition, classification of word memorizing strategies and methods used in the dissertation to investigate learning strategies. in the third part, the author interviews some students of hebei university of science and technology and let them fill in questionnaire and then gets some problems in learning vocabulary. part 4 introduces some direct and indirect strategies to help chinese learners to overcome obstacles. last part comes into conclusions and implications are also suggested in terms of vocabulary memorizing.2. literature review2.1. definitions of word memorizing strategieswhat exactly memorizing strategy has often been left rather vague. there are different opinions on the definition of learning strategies among different researchers. ellis (1994) described memorizing strategies as strategies that contribute to the development of the language system that the learner constructs and affects learning directly. later omalley&chamot (1990) stated that memorizing strategies are the special thoughts or behaviors that individuals use to help them comprehend, learn, or retain new information. richards, platt&platt(2000) pointed out memorizing strategies are intentional behaviors and thoughts that learners make use of during learning in order to better help them understand, learn or remember new information.it is obvious that no strong agreement has been reached on the definition of language memorizing strategies. however, any of strategies is incomplete in general because each of them includes only one or several aspects of memorizing strategies. ellis (1994), therefore, suggested that the following characteristics should be recognized.(i) strategies refer to both general approaches and specific actions or techniques seed to learn an l2.(ii) strategies are problem-oriented-the learner deploys a strategy to overcome some particular learning problem.(iii)some strategies are behavioral while others are mental. thus some strategies are directly observable, while others are not.(iv) the main strategies contribute indirectly to learning by providing learners with data about the l2 which they can then process. however, some strategies may also contribute directly (for example, memorization strategies directed at specific lexical items or grammatical rules).in summary, ellis understanding of memorizing strategies with the four characteristics is relatively comprehensive. therefore according to the above four characteristics, the definition provided by richards, platt and platt (2000) is a relatively comprehensive one.2. 2. classifications of memorizing strategiesaccording to the relationship between strategies and language materials, oxfords framework of memorizing strategies makes a clear distinction between direct strategies and indirect strategies. direct strategies refer to “strategies that directly involve the target language” in the sense that they “require mental processing of the language”(oxford 1990). indirect strategies “provide indirect support for language learning through focusing, planning, evaluating, seeking opportunities, controlling anxiety, increasing cooperation and empathy and other means” (oxford 1990). direct strategies include memory strategies, cognitive strategies and compensation strategies. indirect strategies are divided into meta-cognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies.according to different objectives of strategy use, cohen (1998) divided memorizing strategies into vocabulary memorizing strategies and vocabulary using strategies. memorizing strategies are those learning processes that are consciously selected by the learners aimed to learn vocabulary. they include familiarizing the material for learning, grouping it for easier learning, repeatedly knowing more details about the material, and remembering it with efforts. on the other hand, vocabulary-using strategies certainly aim to use vocabulary that include retrieval strategies (to call up material from storage), rehearsal strategies, cover strategies (a special type of compensatory or coping strategy) and communication strategies (to convey message in interaction). either memorizing strategies or using strategies are useful to improve the learning of a second language, the use of it.according to the comparison of the above memorizing strategies, we come into conclusion that oxfords framework of memorizing strategies (1990) appears more justifiable.2. 3. methods used to investigate memorizing strategies some researchers pointed out that learner memorizing vocabulary in classroom setting is “not very productive” (rubin 1981). another two methods that prove to be more successful involve the use of structured questionnaires and structured interviews, both of which can elicit retrospective accounts of the strategies learners employ. structured interviews and questionnaires can provide the most detailed information about learning strategies, although rubin (1981) noted that learners vary greatly in their ability to describe their strategies and that most of the learners she has investigated need to be tutored in self-reporting. cohen (1998), therefore, suggested that the degree of formality, the number of responders should all be taken into consideration to ensure the objectivity of the interviews and questionnaire when designing them.in summary, each of the methods used to investigate learning strategies has its own advantages as well as disadvantages. which method or methods should be chosen depends on the nature of the study, the subjects, the type (s) of strategies to be investigated, the resources available and the context in which learning tasks take place. 3. vocabulary memorizing of chinese learners3.1. two interviews and questionnaire of chinese learnersin order to have a more in-depth understanding of the vocabulary-learning situation of chinese learners, the author carried out two interviews and questionnaire (see appendix). the subjects in the first interview are top students of hebei university of science and technology, and the subjects in the second one are common students in this school. 30 students fill in questionnaire. this university is not a key university and itsr students english level is relatively low compared with those from key universities in beijing and shanghai. however, these students represent the majority of chinese university students and their learning of english vocabulary can be viewed typical. the subjects in the first interview are juniors majoring in physics and their english are quite good. they all passed cet 6 at the beginning of the second year in university. students like them must have a very big vocabulary and can represent those university students in china who are good at learning vocabulary. so with high interest, the author carried out an interview with them in order to have a clear idea about vocabulary learning strategy; the subjects in the second interview are sophomores majoring in mathematics. unfortunately, they have failed cet 4 and the biggest problem facing them in learning english is vocabulary. this situation might be typical of the majority of the students who have never overcome the barrier in their process of learning english, i. e. vocabulary; the subjects of questionnaire are some top students and common students.3.2. analysis through two interviews and questionnairethrough analyzing these two interviews and questionnaire, we can have a general idea about situation of chinese non-english major students learning of vocabulary. the problems they are facing can be summarized as follows:(i). the majority of students do not possess a scientific and systematic vocabulary learning strategy containing both direct and indirect approaches (see chapter 4).(ii). most of chinese non-english major university students, except those with a high english level, focus too much on direct vocabulary learning strategies and pay little attention to those indirect vocabulary learning strategies including reading, listening and speaking, writing etc.(iii). even for direct vocabulary learning approaches, most university students only stick to one or two very mechanic ones like memorization. they have little knowledge about those other direct vocabulary learning methods, let alone using them flexibly and scientifically.from above-mentioned problems facing the majority of non-english major students in a chinese university, we can find out that it is critical and important for those students who are still struggling with new words to have a overall and detailed knowledge of both direct and indirect vocabulary learning strategies and then build, according to their own english level, a systematic and suitable vocabulary memorizing strategy. from next chapter on, i am going to touch upon this task.4. on vocabulary memorizing strategiesbasically speaking, the memorizing strategies for vocabulary are divided into two big categories, namely, direct strategy and indirect strategy. in direct strategy, a learner will focus his or her attention on vocabulary learning itself. the direct learning strategy is, to some extent, efficient in terms of return for effort and time. in indirect strategy of vocabulary learning, a learners concern for vocabulary is not focused on vocabulary itself. he or she may mix his or her process of learning new words with other activities such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. generally speaking, the indirect strategies of vocabulary learning can be categorized into two main aspects: meaning-focused input that consists of reading and listening, and meaning-focused output that consists of speaking and writing. lets look at these two approaches one by one in detail.4.1. direct vocabulary learningin this part, direct vocabulary learning includes rote learning, word cards, dictionary strategies and skills and then talks about word parts. 4.1.1 rote learning upon embarking on the process of foreign language learning, one of the most frequently asked questions of learners is how to commit a massive amount of foreign vocabularies to their memories. obviously, the easiest way they tend to use simply is to repeat new words until they can be remembered. this is what we called rote learning, which seems to be very popular with a lot of learners. to achieve the best result while using rote learning, the learners must familiarize themselves with several points concerning this strategy.first of all, they should get to know how many words should be studied at one time. crothers and suppes (1967)，for example, examined list sizes of new words ranging from 18 to 300. they found out that when words were difficult, small list sizes were better, and when words were easy, large sizes were more effective.secondly, it is important for the learners to have a clear idea about the number of repetitions that is needed to fully remember the new words. how many times we need to meet a word before we are confident enough to use it freely. crothers and suppes (1967) found that almost all of their participants remembered all 108 russian-english word pairs after 7 repetitions, and about 80% of 216 word pairs were learned by most participants after 6 repetitions. after we have learned the number of repetitions needed, it is therefore very natural for us to touch upon the next question, i.e. the timing for repetition. many scholars have reached a conclusion that forgetting mostly occurs immediately after initial encounter and the pace of forgetting slows down afterwards. anderson and jordan (1928) examined the number of words that could be recalled immediately after initial learning, 1 week, 3 weeks, and 8 weeks thereafter and discovered a learning rate of 66%, 48%, 39%, and 37% respectively. therefore, it is suggested that learners should start repeating newly learned words immediately after the first encounter. reviewing new words the next day seems manageable and highly desirable. and then, spaced recall and repetition could follow at longer intervals. last but not least, we come to the question of learners habit in rote learning. should they repeat the new words aloud or just silently? various studies have come to almost the same conclusion that repeating words aloud helps retention far better than silent repetition. seibert (1927) studied three conditions: studying aloud, studying aloud with written recall, and studying silently, and found that the first condition always produced better results than the other two. more recent studies (gary&gary, 1982: gershman, 1970) also gave the same results.4.1.2 the use of word cardsits not rare to find learners memorize new words with a small pack of word cards. the so-called word card is a kind of tools to learn vocabulary, many words are listed in a word card and new words are changed after a fixed period. some characters and usages can be listed in the word card in order to make learners more clear about the words. learning from word cards is a kind of intentional learning through which a learner can quickly increase his or her vocabulary size. before making word cards, it is important for us to have a clear idea about what words to choose. not only should we guarantee the usefulness of the words, we must also try our best to avoid interference. we should make sure that words of similar spelling or of related meaning do not appear together in the same pack of cards. this kind of words should not be all learned at the same time in the days of the week. the same applies to months of the year, numbers, opposites, words with similar meanings, and words in the same category such as items of clothing, names of fruit, parts of the body, and things in the kitchen. after we have chosen the right words, we can set out to make those word cards. we usually put the word to be learned on one side of the card and its meaning on the other side. according to some researchers (lado, baldwin and lobo, 1967), the vocabulary learning is more efficient when the meaning is written in the learners first language because in that way, the meaning can be easily understood and the first language meaning usually brings many rich associations for the learners. of course, the word can be written in a sentence instead of as a single item if this seems easier for learners to grasp. for some learners, to put the meaning of a word into pictures or maps would bring about better results. if space is enough, we can also put pronunciation, collocation, words family and even register and style in the cards. so far as the size of the word cards is concerned, we often start with small packs of cards一about 15 or 20 words. difficult items should be learned in s